There exist a number of software tools or suites that support queries and accesses to data warehouses, such as electronic databases residing in servers and the like, to provide business intelligence to businesses. As referred herein, business intelligence includes applications and technologies that work together to collect, provide access to, and analyze data and information about operations of a business or any other desired entity. Thus, a company can implement a business intelligence software application in its operations to obtain a more comprehensive knowledge of the factors affecting their business, such as metrics (i.e., data measurements) on sales, production, human resources, and other internal operations to enable the company to make better business decisions. Examples of commercially-available business intelligent software applications include but are not limited to: BusinessObjects™ of Business Objects, S.A., Paris, France; MicroStrategy 8™ of MicroStrategy Inc., McLean, Va.; and Hyperion Intelligence™ of Hyperion Solutions Corp., Santa Clara, Calif.
A business intelligence software or application (hereinafter, “BI application”) typically includes multiple components for providing report creation, data viewing, and data distribution in one or more databases of interest. To that effect, a BI application creates a metadata layer, also known as a universe, to interface with a database in order to map everyday business terms to the data stored in the database. The universe simplifies the processes of creating reports, viewing data and distributing data by providing an easy way to see and understand the data.
Conventionally, to create a universe for interfacing with a database, a template is initially created to prepare and capture the low-level design specifications of the universe based on the data in the database of interest. Once the low-level design specifications are prepared and captured, the BI application may be used to develop or create a universe based on the low-level design specifications. However, the conventional approach to developing a universe takes a significant amount of time and requires knowledgeable information technology (IT) professionals because components of the universe (classes, objects, etc.) must be manually defined in a universe window, as provided by the BI application, with reference to the prepared low-level design specifications. Thus, once the universe design specifications are written, most of the universe creation activities are manually intensive and time consuming. Accordingly, the conventional approach is costly and causes a company to delay implementation of business intelligence to better manage its operations in the fast-paced world.